Summary

In this chapter, we have covered most of the aspects involved in integrating a robotic arm with MoveIt! and Gazebo, which gives us a realistic view of how a robotic arm could be used in a real-life environment. MoveIt! provides us with very simple and concise tools for motion planning on robotic arms using an Inverse Kinematics (IK) solver as well as ample documentation in order to facilitate this process, but given the complexity of the architecture, it can only be done properly once all of the different interactions between MoveIt!, the sensors, and the actuators in our robot have been properly understood.

We have glanced through the different high-level elements in the MoveIt! API, which would require an entire book of their own to be covered in detail. In an attempt to avoid the cost of understanding a full API to perform very simple actions, the approach taken in this book has been to limit ourselves to very simple motion planning and interacting with both artificially created...